Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,
University of Texas at Austin

Robert Haven Schauffler, author, lecturer, and musician, was born of
American missionary parents in Brünn, Austria, on April 8, 1879. The family
returned to the U. S. two years later, where Shauffler later attended
Northwestern University (1898-1899) and Princeton University, earning his B.A.
in 1902. He pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Berlin from 1902
to 1903. As a cellist, Schauffler studied under Steindel, Schroeder, and
Hekking. In 1904, he married Katharine de Normandie Wilson, who died in 1916.
During World War I, Schauffler was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the
Infantry of the U. S. Army, in which he was also an instructor in the Officers
Training School at Camp Meade, Maryland. He participated in the Allied invasion
of France, where he was severely wounded before the battle of Montfaucon in the
Meuse-Argonne offensive. Having been decorated with the Order of the Purple
Heart, he was discharged May 28, 1919. Schauffler then resumed his career as
author and lecturer, which he continued until his death in 1964.

Schauffler held positions as editor of
Nassau Literary Magazine (1901-1902), music
editor of
The Independent (1903-1904), and was a
special contributor to
Collier's Weekly (1906),
Century (1907),
Outlook (1907),
Success (1909-1910),
Atlantic (1911), and
Metropolitan (1911). Schauffler was a
prolific poet, whose publications include
Scum o' the Earth and Other Poems (1912),
The White Comrade and Other Poems (1920),
Magic Flame and Other Poems (1923),
The Poetry Cure (1925), and
New and Selected Poems (1942). He also
published monographs on a variety of musicial subjects, including
The Musical Amateur (1911),
Fiddler's Luck (1920),
Music as a Social Force in America (1927),
Beethoven: The Man Who Freed Music (1929),
The Unknown Brahms (1933),
Fiddler's Folly and Encores (1942),
Brahms, The Master (1943; with Madeleine
Goss),
Florestan: The Life and Work of Robert Schumann
(1945), and
Franz Schubert: The Ariel of Music (1949).
Among his travel books, there are
Through Italy with the Poets (1908),
Romantic Germany (1909), and
Romantic America (1913). Finally, Schauffler
published many books celebrating holidays and observances, including
Thanksgiving (1907),
Christmas (1907),
Arbor Day (1909),
Washington's Birthday (1910),
Independence Day (1912),
Armistice Day (1927),
Plays for Our American Holidays (1928), and
Columbus Day (1938). In addition, Schauffler
frequently contributed poems and articles to a variety of periodicals and
anthologies throughout his career.

The collection consists primarily of incoming correspondence, including
typed and holograph manuscripts, postcards, Christmas cards, photographs,
newspaper clippings, autographs, and a calendar. The materials are arranged
alphabetically by correspondent. Outgoing correspondence is interfiled with the
incoming correspondence.

Robert Haven Schauffler's wide circle of friends and professional
associates is well documented in this collection. Correspondents include
musicians, composers, authors, family members, scholars, and admirers. Subjects
range from the clumsiness of Schumann's compositional notation to Charlotte
Brontë and fundamental questions concerning the poetic process. Among the more
significant pieces of correspondence are a series of letters from Grace Hazard
Conkling, in which she discusses the character and literary theories of Amy
Lowell, Germany and German music, the image of porpoises in her own verse,
George Saintsbury's
A History of English Prose Rhythm, and
Beethoven; letters written by the poet Louise Imogen Guiney to Edward A.
Church; German translations of Schauffler's poetry done by Heinrich Barban; a
lively discussion of music in the letters of Elizabeth C. Moore; letters from
James Oppenheim, comparing poetry to music, questioning proper contemporary
poetic subjects, and examining the differences between poetry of the nineteenth
century and the twentieth; and, finally, correspondence from George Sterling,
in which he touches upon the death of Jack London, his own impending divorce,
sobriety, and the beauty of Carmel, California. The correspondence from Fritz
Eichenberg, Clare Leighton, and R. H. Sauter include original lithographs and
woodcuts printed on cards.

In addition, there are a number of typed and holograph manuscripts of
poems, including Katherine Lee Bates's “The Debt,” Robert Graves's “Burrs
& Brambles,” Clement Allison's “The Matter with the Poets” and
others, poems by Clark Ashton Smith and George Sterling, Louis Untermeyer's
“Spratt vs. Spratt” with corrections in his own hand, Edmund Gosse's “The
Fear of Death,” poems by Jessie Kemp Hawkins, Richard Hovey's “Matthew
Arnold,” Robert Underwood Johnson's “October” and “Portae Musarum,”
poems by Theda Kenyon, George Cabot Lodge's “Life and Death,” poems by
Charles F. Lummis, James Oppenheim, Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, and Corinne
Roosevelt Robinson, and Charles Hanson Towne's “Silence,” among many
others. A poem by Siegfried Sassoon, “In Sicily,” is included as a printed
publication from the series, “The Ariel Poems.”

In his capacity as musician and biographer of Beethoven, Brahms, and
Schumann, Schauffler also received correspondence from such figures as the
composer Edwin Grasse, Alfred Einstein, Pablo Casals, Ossip Gabrilowitsch,
Gregor Piatigorsky, the German concert pianist Elly Ney, Leopold Stokowski,
Joseph Szigeti, and Arturo Toscanini. Subjects touched on in the musical
correspondence include the Grasse Trio, the difficulties of the blind, musical
performance, public taste in music, horseback riding as an inspiration for
musical composition, the twelve-tone scale, Igor Stravinsky, Schauffler's
Fiddler's Fate, autobiography, book
reviewing, Schumann, Schubert, and Brahms.

Other subjects touched on in the collection include the anxiety of
German citizens before the outbreak of World War II and their attempts to leave
the country, public taste in and reception to literature, the didactic
qualities of literature, publishing, the effects of European travel on the
American abroad, writers' colonies, the establishment of Israel as an
independent nation, the military, college life, and marriage. The
correspondence also contains material of a more personal nature, including
condolences on the death of Schauffler's first wife, admiration for his poetry,
thanks for various assistances and gifts provided by Schauffler, and
congratulations on his remarriage.

In addition, there is a folder of autographs of famous singers from the
Metropolitan Opera at the turn of the century. Among those included are Emilio
Bevignani, David Bispham, Andreas Dippel, Lilli Lehmann, Eugenia Mantelli,
Adolf Mühlmann, Lillian Nordica, Pol Plançon, Lempriere Pringle, Edouard de
Reszke, Jean de Reszke, Anton van Rooy, Albert Saléza, and Ernestine
Schumann-Heink. There are also a few photographs of some of these performers in
various roles: Ernestine Schumann-Heink in an unidentified role; David Bispham
as Albrecht; Pol Plançon as Méphistophélès in
Faust; Andreas Dippel in
Lucia di Lammermoor; Anton van Rooy as Hans
Sachs in
Der Meistersinger; Lillian Nordica in an
unidentified role; and Enrico Caruso as Enzo in
La Gioconda. This folder also contains a
fragment of a holograph note from Jeanne Chausson, the widow of the composer
Ernest Chausson. Finally, there are autographs of Johan Bojer and Alexander
Siloti as well as an envelope addressed by Sidney Lanier to his wife fom
1872.

The collection was received in two alphabetical sequences, a division
which was apparently made for sale purposes. Therefore, these two sequences
have been combined into one alphabetical sequence. The folder containing
autographs of opera singers and the holograph fragment by Jeanne Chausson was
not interfiled within the main sequence but was, rather, filed at the end of
the sequence. The autographs of Johan Bojer and Alexander Siloti and the
envelope addressed by Sidney Lanier were pulled from the main correspondence
sequence because their format suggested collocation with the other
autographs.

Further material relating to Schauffler may be found in the following
HRHRC collections: Robert Underwood Johnson, Christopher Darlington Morley,
PEN, Grant Richards, and Idella Purnell Stone.